Five Ranks of the House of Tsao-tung

Five Ranks of the House of Tsao-tung

A doctrine constructed by Tōsan Ryōkai (807–869) (q.v.). Based ‘not on the ontological psychological analysis of Bst. philosophy but on the experience of enlightenment’ (Dumoulin). The exercise involves five relations between the Absolute and the Relative, A later commentary by Sōzan Honjaku gives the fivefold analogy of the lord and vassal, or master and servant.

See Dumoulin, The Development of Chinese Zen (1953), Chap. II.

1. the real containing the seeming

2. the seeming containing the real

3. resurgence of the real

4. the seeming uniting with the real

5. integration of the real and the seeming